Weeks 52 & 53: Monday, August 19, 2024 – Sunday, September 31, 2024

Happy Sunday, everyone,

I hope you are all well. I'm currently writing to you from my hotel in Querétaro where I arrived this afternoon after spending the night in Jalpan with my friend Veronica. I came to Querétaro this week to meet the new cohort of volunteers who arrived in Mexico on Wednesday! How crazy is that?

Y'all, if I'm being completely honest, the past two weeks haven't been my best. On paper, it may seem like everything is going great: I'm moving forward with my cistern project, I spent part of last week in Jalpan, and this week school was back in session and I was able to get out of the house more to get my work done and spend time with different community members. 

Like I said, on paper, things are good. And I'm not saying I'm not enjoying what I'm doing, but sometimes it's hard.

I've officially been in Mexico for an entire year! Friday marked one year since landing in Querétaro, and, you know, a year is a long time. It's if with a year passing, I'm saying goodbye to my former life and accepting that this is my life now. I know it's only for another year (and a bit), but I think reaching this point is both exciting and a bit of a crossroads. 

I've been in Mexico a whole year, in Neblinas for 10 months, and I'm looking back at my service and thinking about what I've accomplished. I'm excited to get started on my cistern project, but you know, community organizing isn't exactly easy. Although, I feel very fortunate to have formed a project committee made up of four women with children at the high school who are very eager to help organize and fight to make this project a success. 

I don't want you all to think that I'm completely unhappy, because I'm not. There are definitely things I love about living in Mexico and the work I'm doing. But it can also be very isolating living in a small town with infrequent transportation and a real lack of community organization. They say the 1-year mark can be one of the most difficult times for volunteers in their service, and I think that's likely what I'm experiencing. 

But let me assure you, I am not going to quit. I have too many important things going on to just up and leave. I have my cistern project, the peer support network, running the El Maíz Más Pequeño Instagram, and many more exciting things in the pipeline for the coming year. 

I wanted to write an authentic letter to you all because most of what you have seen so far is the shiny, exciting part of service. But I've also struggled. There have been a number of ups and downs this past year. And while things have generally been positive, there have certainly been times (such as now) where I haven't felt incredible and where I wasn't sure if I was going to keep going with my service. 

But, as I said, I'm going to stick it out, at least to see things through with my cistern project, which I am getting started on in the next few weeks. 

Now, instead of continuing with a recap of the last couple of weeks, I'm going to write a recap of the things that have happened in this year of service in Mexico. This will serve as a reminder to myself and a nice summary (or TL;DR in internet speak) for those of you who may be newer to following my service journey. 

So, (*deep breath*) here we go.

On August 27, 2023, I left San Diego and flew to Washington, D.C. for Peace Corps staging: the first few days of service where we meet our cohort and learn a bit more about Peace Corps policies before flying to our country of service. 

After three days of training and being asked to consider if Peace Corps is really what we want for our futures, all 39 hopeful Peace Corps Trainees got on the plane to Mexico and started our journey together. 

We landed in Querétaro on August 30, 2023 and took a bus to the Mision la Muralla — a beautiful hotel in the hills of Amealco, Querétaro. There, we spent a couple of days getting to know our Peace Corps staff and connecting with our cohort. 

On Friday, September 1 (a year ago today), we loaded up the bus and made our way to the Peace Corps offices in Querétaro and proceeded to meet the families whom we were going to live with throughout training. I was originally placed in one host-family home, but after a couple of days, it was clear it wasn't going to be a good fit, and I was moved into the home of Ofelia, my host for the duration of our pre-service training (PST). 

From September 1 – November 9, I lived in Querétaro and went to the office Monday – Friday for pre-service training, which was packed with policy meetings, language and culture classes, health and safety trainings, and technical skills sessions. 

At the end of September, Rayanne and I took our first trip into the Sierra Gorda and spent three days in Neblinas where we met our host families and got a quick glimpse of the beautiful community that we were shortly going to be calling our new home.

On November 9, 37 of the original 39 trainees swore in as volunteers. From the ceremony, we said our quick goodbyes and made our way to our respective communities where we would begin the real part of our service journeys.

For the first couple of months in Neblinas, things were pretty quiet, with the holidays and having not yet gotten involved with the schools. The first couple months at site was when I started taking pictures of the incredible biodiversity surrounding the community — something that may have been started off as a hobby but now may be leading to something bigger and more important (more on that later). 

In December, I experienced my first Mexican Christmas (and I'd say celebrated my first Christmas ever). 

In January, Rayanne and I started teaching classes at the elementary school and middle school. We started a compost with the middle schoolers and taught basic environmental science in the elementary school as well as English classes in the middle school. 

In late February, I visited my friend Sean in his community of Rio Blanco. We then traveled together to Querétaro for our early in-service training (EIST) where we were reunited with all of our cohort for the first time since November. The climate change awareness and action volunteers spent a few days at the Via Orgánica farm outside of San Miguel de Allende and afterwards spent three more days in Querétaro for our counterpart workshop.

After EIST, I met up with my wonderful parents in Mexico City were we spent a week touristing together and seeing all the beautiful sites of Mexico.

In April, 60+ community members and four other Peace Corps volunteers attended the community event Rayanne and I organized for Earth Day.

In May, my friend Rachel came up to Neblinas for a few days. We learned together that May is not the month to come to Neblinas, as it is one of the hottest months in Mexico. I also began applying for my cistern grant project and working more closely with the community high school.

 

Later that month, I took a trip to Amealco to celebrate the success of my friend Ransom's community cistern project, crossing the entire state of Querétaro twice in the span of five days. I then participated in the community song contest during Neblinas' patron saint festival. 

At the end of June, I took another trip to Mexico City, this time to see my friend José who was working there for the month. We had a great time going to fancy bars and restaurants and living it up in the big city.

In July, I spent two weeks at home relaxing by the pool and celebrating Abbi and Joe's engagement. I had a beautiful time seeing everyone and remembering why I love San Diego so much. 

When I got back to Neblinas, I went on a number of exciting adventures with my friends Tito and Jair and participated in their annual curso de verano. 

August flew by in the blink of an eye. I spent a week at the beginning of the month training to be a part of the Peer Support Network and taking care of medical and immigration appointments. My cistern project was approved by the small grants committee and I started the process of forming my committee and getting the community ready to become the recipients of cisterns for rain water harvesting. 

A lot has happened this year. And I feel good about how things have gone overall. 

I know I started this email off by expressing to you all about the challenges I am currently facing, but I know that everything is temporary. 

I have 14 months left of my service and I'm going to make the best of them. This month, I'm going to start my cistern project. I will also be receiving a visit from a biologist who specializes in amphibians and reptiles who reached out to me through the platform Naturalista in search of someone who could help him facilitate a visit up to Neblinas. I plan to visit my friend Sean for his community's patron saint festival, and after (hopefully) finishing my project in December, I will be heading home to celebrate the holidays and spend time with my parents and hopefully Abbi and Joe, too. 

They say the second year of service goes by in the blink of an eye. They also say that in Peace Corps the days are long but the years are short. This year certainly passed me by faster than I could possibly imagine. 

With the hopes of finishing my first project this year and starting a second project early next year, I'm sure this coming year will go by even faster than the first. 

I appreciate you all taking the time to read this email and for coming along with me on this journey. 

We have a lot more to go, so hang in there!

Love,
Ilana